


The Virtue Of Angels

by FrenchyGKG



Series: Overwatch: Future Series [2]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Identity, Introspection, Non-Consensual Body Modification, Post-Talon Widowmaker | Amélie Lacroix, Psychological Trauma, Redemption, Regret, Revenge, Romance, Talon Hana "D.Va" Song
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-03
Updated: 2017-06-03
Packaged: 2018-11-08 07:17:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11076690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FrenchyGKG/pseuds/FrenchyGKG
Summary: Sequel to The D.Va Touch. Focuses on Amélie Lacroix and Angela Ziegler.Virtuous or vile, it makes no difference for Angela Ziegler: every human life is precious. Just as she's saved Genji Shimada's life years ago, she'll save Amélie Lacroix's.





	The Virtue Of Angels

The same recurring nightmare jolts Angela awake. It takes a few instants for the images to vanish from her mind and for her senses to kick into full gear. The verticality of her position surprises her: only after a second or two does she recognize the room and realize that - once again - she's dozed off in her infirmary, snatched away by sleep as she allowed herself a few moments of rest. It's time to call it a day, Dr. Ziegler. She has trained herself not to need too much sleep, to attain it and keep it even under difficult circumstances as well. The quiet and familiar hum of the machines proves to be a strange lullaby: she'd only need to close her eyes and switch to a more comfortable position to finish her night peacefully.

I miss my warzone, she thinks with a hint of irony. No walls to push back for all the equipment. For a moment, she considers using the handful of hours before dawn to clean up the clutter of the "infirmary" (ten airquotes around that aren't enough).

What's the point? She knows she'd already optimized every the utility of every single square inch of the ground a hundred times already. A table covered in medical contraptions sits next to her. Medical contraptions... Plus a bottle of wine, with suitable glass.

Why is... Oh, right. She takes the bottle in hand - it still feels somewhat fresh to the touch. She hasn't been out for long, at least. Chardonnay, the 2047 vintage - a good year, by all accounts. A small sign on the white label - a human hand and a robotic one grasping one another, within a grey square - guarantees that the grapes were picked by a mixed workforce of human and Omnics with equal pay. It's the old label: the new one looks more detailed, with a green outline.

Angela sighs. The existence of this kind sign had been something of a continent-wide debate, two decades ago. Some said people deserved to know who their food had been prepared by - didn't see them clamoring for a sign to know if their frozen lasagna had been prepared by someone left-handed, she thinks cheekily - other wanted Omnic quotas in enterprises, another group saw Omnics as a threat to the livelihood of human workers, a fourth camp pointed out that barely any Omnic had been invited to any of these debates concerning the future of Omnics. Overwatch had kept its vow of neutrality on national policy, and as for her... Well, her sights were set on other things.

Her pad rests unstable on her lap, threatening to slip and hit the ground at a moment's notice. She touches the screen. First mistake.

It lights up with a database of thousands of physiological and medical profiles, some old, some new, each of them important in its own right, classifiable by date of entry, name, gender, age, blood type, nationality and others she'd rarely seen fit to use.

Such as whether they were alive or dead. She can pride herself on the knowledge that her work has made the former category larger than the latter - and continues to make it larger.

Blemishless skin brushes the glass substrate, turning the column of records into a blur of names and numbers. She hesitates for a moment before a filed nail drags down a search bar from the top of the screen.

It takes a couple of seconds for the loading bar to fill. The file is massive, chronicling the countless steps of the patient's recovery with a precision that borders on the obsessive, illustrated by pictures, videos and notes that'd take hours to go through. Some of them she remembers quite clearly. The basic informations almost feel like an afterthought, buried underneath the details, the identity of the patient crushed underneath the mechanism utilized to heal them. The name is but an alignment of twelve white letters against the blue background:

Genji Shimada.

She eyes the bottle once again. Chardonnay-fueled nostalgia time? Or maybe it'd be nostalgia-fueled Chardonnay time? Ah, why the hell not.

A glass is poured, a glassful of wine is swiveled in circles, a centiliter of the product is tasted. Not bad. Not bad at all. It's sweet and strong and reminds her of grapefruit and coriander. Definitely a good year, or at least that's what her uneducated palate tells her.

Her interest in Genji had been purely medical, at first. His body, ravaged almost beyond recognition by the power of his own bloodline, barely capable of ensuring its most basic functions. The Shimada clan's dragons inflicted wounds that did not heal, he'd told them, it infected every cell it destroyed with an energy that rendered any healing impossible. Impossible. The notion of this medical challenge being impossible had felt like an attack on her own ego. She'd refused to believe it at first. Dragons. She takes a long sip of wine, savoring it on her tongue.

So Overwatch'd made him a offer. He could stay like that, artificially kept alive until life eventually escaped him, his body slowly shutting down organ by organ as he spent his last days, weeks, maybe months in agony. Or he could accept to work with them and they'd put all their intellectual and medical power into building something new for him and him only. It was a cold calculation, callous, even, but Overwatch wasn't a charity, and they wouldn't go to such lenghts to build a man a new body if some return on investment wasn't guaranteed.

One detail - from before the offer'd been made - comes back to her. She'd seen his lips - or the two numb pieces of torn flesh that passed for them - moving all throughout the first hours, the most important ones, long, grueling, every passing second a coin flip to decide between life and death. She was there, alone in the medbay with this broken heap of bones and sinew threatening to flatline at any instant. Out of her depth. Almost out of her depth.

There'd been one moment, one only, when every single sound that filled the medbay - machines, footfalls, her own words as she commented her every action to no one that could hear - had stopped, perfect silence in the noisiest of worlds. So unbelievable a coincidence that she still wondered if she'd imagined it.

The rest of these thirty-two hours are a haze, but this one moment is still vivid. During this instant, she'd heard what Genji had mouthed for hours. "Stop."

"That's the kind of files Talon would kill just to get." The voice cuts through the air from just behind her, and Angela feels something in her chest tightening.

The dim light of the screen draws the outline of Amélie's silhouette in the darkness. She is standing besides her chair, barefoot, clad in nothing more than the shirt they'd given her as nightwear: from where Angela is, her expression is shielded from view by a curtain of hip-length hair, cascading on her shoulder, down her front and back, coiling like snakes. Amélie takes the bottle in hand, appears to examine it for what seems to be an eternity.

Or at least long enough for her to put her composure back together. "Is there a problem, Amélie?" Angela asks after a few moments, "You should be resting up. It's late." It's been two weeks since she's arrived - Angela can at least affect a professional tone, instead of a strained, suspicious one. It's less than she'd hoped, more than she'd feared.

Amélie clicks her tongue in annoyance. She sits at the edge of the table, pushing away microscopes and other contraptions with an indifference that have made Angela furious if she hadn't caught herself doing the same to grab one square inch more of free table space. The bottle remains in her hand. "Two hours a night is all I need. You know that." she replies harshly. "If I needed more... God, I wish I did. Days get long. Really long. There's only so much time you can use doing something useful, and I can't even do that-" She takes a deep breath. "-Anyways, I... My head hurts. I'm feeling things they programmed my brain not to be even capable of feeling. My synapses don't know what to do with the electrical signals and I need something for that."

Ah, yes. It's not the first she's told her about that. Angela nods her head and stands up with the calm poise of the seasoned medical professional. "I have plenty of things for headaches. How bad is your pain?" She asks, walking over to the drug cabinet.

A wrinkle appears on the bridge of Amélie's nose. "It's the feeling of a part of your brain getting stimulated when it's not supposed to exist anymore. Like my cortex is trying to explode out of my head. Like someone is trying to squeeze my right eyeball out of its socket."

"Intense pain, then." Angela comments in deadpan. She comes back with a white bottle, pours three yellow pills into her hand. Amélie looks at them with a hint of suspicion that Angela finds honestly quite offensive- but her facade doesn't budge. "Take them..." Amélie shrugs her shoulders, swallows the pills and washes them down with a gulp of wine that'd have made Jesse nod in drunken approval. "...With water. Alcohol doesn't mix well with these."

Amélie isn't listening. She's gone back to studying the bottle, and Angela takes that opportunity to study her, now that she is in front of her, clad in only the long shirt and panties they've given her as nightwear, without weapons and without mask - mainly because it's the only clothes they had that fit.

What does Amélie Lacroix look like? Tall, slim, dark-haired, with a heart-shaped face and large eyes that must be the picture of feminity when she actually emotes. It is childish to think, but she'd love to see her smile, just because she is curious. Beautiful, of course, though Talon's manipulations have perverted it. Her fingers are long and flexible, like those of a pianist. Gérard, in his consummate professionalism, made a point of keeping his private life clearly separate from his work: Angela's memories of Amélie are blurry. She remembers a sweet woman, if a little bit reserved, being introduced to them all at a formal event. Fighting hard against her awkward grasp of English and strong accent to communicate, too, which didn't help much. A rising star in the world of ballet, too, though that had been an aspect of her person that she hadn't gotten to witness. Two years... God, Amélie and Gérard'd been married for barely two years.

Something akin to distress darkens Amélie's features, and she clenches her jaw. "They've taken that away, too. I can't even feel this." Her fingers tighten around the neck of the bottle. For a moment, it seems like she's about to throw it across the room. "Can't get drunk and the taste is barely there. I suppose it makes sense for the perfect assassin, right? It all just makes so much damn sense." Angela braces for a monologue which does not come. She's gone through a number of them, between lamentations and assertions. Amélie's earned the right to vent, so she allows her to.

Amélie doesn't talk about it, but they've made her barren.

"I may be able to do something for that, Amélie. If you really want to get these functions back, it won't be a problem." Angela says, only to be met with a vigorous shake of the head.

"I'm not letting you or anyone put me under, doktor," Amélie snarls. "And besides, this is the toy they built for themselves. I'll kill them all with that exact toy, no more, no less. Then I'll be satisfied."

Angela sighs. God, she is... so difficult to work with. Angela has seen far worse, and putting up with the barbs and the insults and the provocations and the mistrust is nothing. If only Lena and Amélie could find themselves in the same room without an argument breaking out that left the former in a quivering fury... But the sensation to hit a brick wall with every sentence wears her down.

That's Lena. Warmth and generosity to a degree that moves Angela any time she sees them, passion also. Passion is what drives Lena Oxton, and thus her anger and bitterness can be as strong as her affection.

They've had a long talk about Mondatta's death and her feelings on the matter. Lena shows little of it, but the wound to her pride is still fresh and the guilt still at the forefront of her mind. Emily, Emily knows how to calm her girlfriend's aching conscience, but it is too dangerous to bring her with them, at least for the time being. At the very least she's found some companionship in Hana.

She can't wait for them to rejoin Gibraltar. More space to put between people who can't stomach each other. Not that this old Overwatch hideout at the outskirts of Bordeaux is bad, but it is a bit cramped.

"Will you?" she responds, Amélie's gaze snapping to her. Angela crosses her arms and doesn't flinch. "You've been telling me that you're not even sure of your own feelings. I believe you. Amélie's been buried deep under the surface, it's only normal that she's disoriented when she emerges again. I sympathize with your need for vengeance-" Amélie shakes her head dismissively. "- Really, I do. But that's not everything there is, is it? How can you be sure that you're going to find satisfaction at the end of it? That you won't feel worse?" Amélie remains motionless. "Are you sure that this is not..." She searches for her words. "...Part of what they implanted into you?"

Five agonizingly long seconds pass. Then, finally, Amélie deigns to answer. "It doesn't matter. That's the only thing I have, and I'm gonna act on it." She stands up - god, Amélie is tall. Even barefoot, she has several inches on her. "What do you want me to do? Stand around and feel sorry for myself, arguing with you over nothing? No! I have the opportunity, I have the skills, and I want it!" Her voice rises into a shout and she stops when she realizes the volume she's reached. There's something slightly reassuring in the fact that she can muster up some emotion and passion in herself, Angela thinks, even if that's for something so ugly. The puzzle of Amélie Lacroix has to build itself starting from somewhere.

Amélie shakes her head again, and holds out her hand after a few seconds. She looks genuinely uncomfortable, pained even. "Your pills aren't working. I need more."

"Give it some time." Angela's voice is even but firm. "Go lie down in the dark, close your eyes for a few minutes. You should feel better then." Her lips curl up into a soft, reassuring smile, perfected through hundreds of hours spent with people whose greatest need after being fixed up was to be reassured. Holistic approaches - not that pseudoscientific mumbo-jumbo some had tried to sell as genuine medicine earlier in the century, but a genuine commitment to the physical and mental well-being of every patient, the path of least resistance to good health. She'd ardently pushed for it, a few years back. It's almost worrying how much sway she has in the medical world. At least she's inspired many little girls and boys to follow the same path - her proudest achievement.

"Three isn't enough. Donne-moi juste cette putain de boîte-" Her tone has sloped into a pained growl, and it's the first time Angela hears her speaking French directly to her. Maybe Amélie doesn't even register her own movement, but she steps forward with enough intent and hostility that Angela backs away, clutching the bottle of pills tightly.

"No. Do you even know what I just gave you? It's the strongest thing I have. Forbidden by law in half of Europe and very, very heavily regulated in the rest. One pill would have been enough to knock Wilhelm out cold for sixteen hours. At the least! Frankly, even Winston wouldn't be standing up, right this moment." She realizes Amélie may not even know who "Wilhelm" is, but it matters little to her.

Seeing her patience and kindness repaid with agression - that's a possibility she's learned to accept as part of the job. She's stood at the bedside of the virtuous and the despicable alike and soothed their pain in the same manner. Hatred for suffering, love for life. Now is no different.

In theory. It is hard to shake off the inherent disgust that a body modified to take life inspires in her, and harder still to accept that Amélie does not wish to see any change made to it.

Amélie hesitates. Bad idea to tell her all this, Angela realizes. A weary sigh escapes the blue-skinned woman's lips. Her entire posture shifts into one of defeat. "Is it really... The strongest thing you have?"

Angela nods. "Yes. Just a little longer now."

Amélie walks away, wordlessly, making a silent beeline to the bedroll they've set up for her in the other room. Angela's eyes remain on the back of her head: even from here, she can see that it has dipped slightly, in fatigue or in despondency.

"Amélie?"

She freezes up in the doorway.

"I appreciate your trust."

Amélie's bare shoulders rise concurrently in a shrug. An instant later, she has disappeared in the darkness beyond the doorway.

Angela's mind wonders for a second into morbid territory: the tolerance Amélie has built for chemicals is quite impressive - it only makes sense that resistance to toxins would be one of the subtler changes they'd have implanted into her. It seems impossible that such a tolerance threshold could have been simply acquired through repeated administration of doses: the answer most likely lies in genetic engineering.

She shakes her head. Now is not the time.

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry for the eternity of waiting between the ending of the D.Va Touch and this. As always, feedback is much appreciated.


End file.
